


Some Time

by rainylittletown



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M, Post-New Moon, edward/bella - Freeform, edward/bella angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25364986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainylittletown/pseuds/rainylittletown
Summary: Bella struggles to trust Edward again after returning from Italy. Oneshot.
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	Some Time

**Author's Note:**

> the first scene is the night the Cullens arrive back home.

“We’re never going to see him again, are we?” Emmett was crashed along the white couch, a ball game already playing on the plasma TV; it was like they’d never been gone. 

Edward still hadn’t returned. He’d hardly said three words to the rest of them—he and Esme had had one quick conversation—before disappearing back to Bella’s. He still wasn’t speaking to Rosalie. 

“Does she even want him back?” Rosalie crossed her arms, an ingrained human habit. There was a slight petulance to her voice, leftover from the embarrassment and horror of the whole terrible ordeal. 

Her words, though, fell on a slight pause in the room. The image of Bella in the airport came to Esme’s mind—exhausted, yes, but also thin and drawn, with preoccupied, guarded eyes. She’d barely said a word to any of them. Seven months was a long time, for a human. 

“Don’t be silly,” Alice said from the stairwell, her voice full of disapproval. “I said everything would be fine, didn’t I?” She rolled her eyes. “Where is the _trust?”_

Esme pulled another sheet from a crystal chandelier. “We are all going to give them time and space, and be understanding and supportive of what Edward needs,” she said firmly.

“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the last half a year?” Rosalie muttered under her breath. 

_“Especially,”_ Esme said pointedly, “given what just happened.” 

Rosalie pursed her lips and said nothing, but got up silently and stalked out to the garage, closing the door lightly behind her. They all knew she still felt terrible. 

“Can I just say,” Emmett began, flipping through channels. “That this will all be pretty pointless if Bella doesn’t come through and, you know, forgive and forget? I mean, what if she found someone else? I don’t think any of us can take the _moping—”_

“Emmett.” Esme cut him off in a light, firm voice. “You’ve been heard, thank you.” 

But Esme’s eyes found Alice’s, questioningly; for all their mutual reassurance, Esme couldn’t help but feel a deep kernel of worry, and she was unsurprised to see that Alice looked a little subdued, herself. 

“It’ll be fine,” Alice repeated quietly. “Bella just needs some time. Humans always do.” She picked up a feather duster and moved over to the piano. “Edward just has some damage repair ahead and some serious…trust to rebuild.” She danced the feathers over the piano keys, and rolled her eyes. “It’ll be good for him.”  
.  
.  
.  
**_Days later_** _  
.  
.  
I’ll earn your trust back somehow, if it’s my final act. Time, I suppose, will be the way to convince you…_

Bella rolled over in bed, waking slowly to sunlight filtering across her pillow. Sleepily, she reached across the bed…and found only empty space. Her chest filled with a cold, empty, familiar feeling, and then she was sitting up, pushing her hair out of her face. 

“Edward?” 

But the room was empty. Anxiety seeped in, making her blood cold and her heart speed up. The bed was empty. His shoes were gone. The window was closed.  
He’d been there when she’d gone to sleep, and now he was gone. 

For a long moment she couldn’t move, feeling only the gaping, tearing edges of the old hole in her chest—she focused on breathing, as she had been a lot lately, closing her eyes and holding herself together, before anything else—so she barely heard the quiet noise, barely noticed the movement at the window, and—

“Bella?” 

He stood there, frowning at her. He had left, and he had come back. 

She made a pathetic picture, she was sure, shoved up against the headboard, her arms at her chest, trying to stave off the panic. 

And then he was there, right there, smoothing back her hair and running a hand along her arm. “Bella, Bella…” 

“Please don’t touch me.” 

He backed off at once, his frown deepening. “I hoped you wouldn’t wake,” he said. “It’s early. I only went to get my car.” 

Her heart rate was slowly returning to normal. “Oh.” 

He picked something up off the bedspread. “I left a note, just in case.” 

She had clearly knocked it off the pillow. She nodded, taking the note from him and turning it over in her hand without opening it. 

“Bella.” He whispered quietly, putting a hand under her chin and gently tipping it up to look at him. “I will always come back. Do you hear me? Always. I will never leave you again.” 

He said it every day. And every day she needed to hear it—and yet she still didn’t believe, somehow. 

“I just didn’t…I don’t…” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t know where you were. I’m fine now.” 

He was still watching her closely. They both knew she wasn’t fine, at all. 

She curled her fingers around one of his wrists, his skin cold against hers, feeling the hole in her chest slowly fade. How could she live in a place of such deep, wild happiness, mixed with such strangled terror all at once? She’d been feeling that way a lot, the past week. 

She cast about for a change of subject. “Doesn’t your family miss seeing you, at all? Shouldn’t you be spending more than two seconds a day at home?” Not that she was complaining, exactly. It was true that he had hardly left her side since returning from Italy just days before, though. She hardly wanted to start a feud with Carlisle and Esme. 

“No,” he answered quietly. “It doesn’t matter, Bella. You’re the only one that matters, right now. This is the only place that I need to be.” 

His eyes were dark and anxious, as they always were when he saw hints of her going to pieces. 

“I’ll stay in this bed for the rest of time, if that’s where you want me,” he murmured, one of his hands cupping the side of her face. 

She closed her eyes, putting her hand over his to hold it in place. How nice it would be, to fully believe him. How simple and sweet and easy, to fall back into the same happy, trusting pattern. 

But she’d heard all the same words before.  
.  
.  
“Charlie already left. Fishing, if you can believe it.” Edward told her when she returned from showering. 

Bella snorted lightly. “Wow, what an honor. He finally trusts me enough that he can leave the house again.” 

“I’m not sure it’s you he doesn’t trust.” 

Bella sighed. “Let’s call it a tie.” 

She rummaged through her sock drawer. “I have work pretty soon…” 

“I can drive you.” 

She came over to the bed and stood between his knees. The shadows beneath his eyes were still too dark, too pronounced in his beautiful face. She traced her finger there. 

“You’re going to have to hunt,” she pointed out. “You can’t keep ignoring it forever.” 

He shrugged. “Disregarding it has worked out fine so far.” 

Bella frowned. “That’s very irresponsible. We can’t have the neighbors disappearing. Charlie’s a cop, you know.” 

Edward smiled her favorite smile. “And shockingly unobservant about having a vampire under his roof.” 

He pressed his face into her shoulder; she could feel his cool lips through her thin shirt. She sighed, closing her eyes and threading her fingers through his hair. 

“I’m not leaving,” he said. 

“You have to hunt. I’ll be at work, anyway.” 

Her voice was steady and sure, but there was something under it, something that was the exact opposite of bright and okay. 

He tipped his head back to look at her, his eyes searching. “When are you going to believe me?”

She ran her fingers through a lock of his hair. “I believe that you love me,” she said quietly. 

He began to shake his head, uncomprehending, so she put a finger over his lips to stop him from speaking. 

“You left before, and you’d made promises then. You’re making promises now, but if something dangerous happens—” She took a deep breath and turned to look out the window. “It was seven months, Edward. _Seven months.”_ Her voice broke into a rough whisper. “You can _say_ whatever you want, but—but you understand that I can’t just _accept that?”_

Gently, his hand went to her face, turning it toward him. She successfully resisted for about three seconds. 

His thumb made small circles beside her chin. “Bella. Bella. I will show you, every day, that I will be here. Forever—as long as you want me. If we’re apart, you’ll always know where I am.” His eyes were ancient. “You have every right to be angry, Bella. I deserve that. But…” He shook his head, frustrated. “I wish you could see just how incapable I am of ever leaving you again. That my word is stronger than steel. You have every part of me. Now. Next year. Always.” 

She closed her eyes, her breathing unsteady. Tears welled, unbidden, against her eyelids. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. Everything hurt. 

He wanted an answer, she knew. He was patient—the most patient person she’d ever met, and yet he was waiting, she knew, for some sign, some kind of solid affirmation from her that she comprehended his words, accepted his sentiment. That everything could be, simply put, okay again. 

“It’s not that simple.” She whispered, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s not—” The tears kept coming, in spite of herself. _“It’s not that simple.”_

Edward shook his head, reaching to wipe her tears, but she stepped out of his grasp. “Bella, please. I don’t—”

“It’s—not—that—easy.” She was full on crying now, as she had done every day since returning from Italy. “It’s not, okay? It’s just—it isn’t.” 

She wasn’t making sense, she knew, but she was out of words. She couldn’t articulate the pain, not to him. It hurt him too much, in return. And sometimes, in a deep, twisted place, she thought that she _wanted_ that, wanted him to feel it too, wanted even to hurt him back. But mostly, she just wanted to feel secure in the truth—to trust her hold on him—and to have faith in her own happiness, again. Their happiness. 

She remembered the night they’d come back from Italy, her torment, her _rage,_ the shoe she’d thrown at the wall, waking Charlie and leaving a gray scuffmark that wouldn’t go away. 

Nothing was simple. 

Particularly when factoring in that he was preventing her from seeing Jacob—Jacob, who had saved her time and again, in so many ways; Jacob, who she had kissed in her kitchen before rushing off to Italy and returning with Edward; Jacob, who was hurting right now in an acutely deep and familiar way. 

Jacob, who had put her back together and taught her to breathe again. 

She scrubbed a sleeve over her tears, looking at the clock. “I have to go to work,” she said, her voice thick. 

Edward stood and tried to stop her, saying words she didn’t let herself hear. 

She shook her head. “I’m already late.” She grabbed her bag and pushed her way to the door. 

“Bella, at least let me drive you.” 

She took a deep breath and shook her head again, not stopping. “Not today. I just need some time to think.”

She took the stairs in a blur, then the front door, the truck—for once, it wasn’t raining, the sky crystal clear and blue—and with a roar of the engine, she was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> would love to hear what you think!


End file.
